Introduction to labels

To help organize your BigQuery resources, you can add labels to
your datasets, tables, and views. Labels are key-value pairs that you can attach
to a resource. When you create BigQuery resources, labels are
optional.

After labeling your resources, you can search for them based on label values.
For example, you can use labels to group datasets by purpose, environment,
department, and so on.

What are labels?

A label is a key-value pair that helps you organize your
Google Cloud Platform BigQuery resources. You can attach a label to
each resource, then filter the resources based on their labels. Information
about labels is forwarded to the billing system, so you can
break down your billing charges by label.

Common uses of labels

We do not recommend creating large numbers of unique labels, such as
for timestamps or individual values for every API call. Here are some common use
cases for labels:

Team or cost center labels: Add labels based on team or
cost center to distinguish BigQuery resources owned by different
teams (for example, team:research and team:analytics). You can use this
type of label for cost accounting or budgeting.

Environment or stage labels: For example,
environment:production and environment:test.

State labels: For example, state:active,
state:readytodelete, and state:archive.

Note: Do not include sensitive information in labels. This includes information
that may be personally identifiable, such as an individual's name or title.
Labels are not designed to handle sensitive information.

Requirements for labels

The labels applied to a resource must meet the following
requirements:

Each resource can have multiple labels, up to a maximum of 64.

Each label must be a key-value pair.

Keys have a minimum length of 1 character and a maximum length of 63
characters, and cannot be empty. Values can be empty, and have a maximum length
of 63 characters.

Keys and values can contain only lowercase letters, numeric characters,
underscores, and dashes. All characters must use UTF-8 encoding, and
international characters are allowed.

The key portion of a label must be unique. However, you can use the
same key with multiple resources.